Another Dawn (11 page)

“Who is Dr. Welton?” I asked.

“He’s our infectious disease specialist. He drives down from Nashville one day a week to see patients in the clinic.” Dr. Mabry removed his glasses and wiped them against his sleeve. “He’s only in town today because last night we admitted a young lady with an unusual infection and he came to check on her. It’s our good fortune that he happens to be here.”

Emily pushed Dylan’s sleeve way back and pulled out a strip of what looked like red rubber. “Dylan, I’m going to tie this around your upper arm for just a minute. Okay? It’ll be a little tight, but I won’t keep it on for long. Can you squeeze this ball really hard for me?” She reached inside her yellow gown and pulled a rubber ball from her lab coat pocket.

“I guess so.” Dylan gripped the ball without further comment, at least until a few seconds later when he saw the needle. He started screaming, an all-out bloodcurdling scream. “No! No! No!” The sound echoed off the walls until I was certain the glass windows would shatter.

It took three of us—Emily, Dr. Mabry, and me—to hold him. I kept Dylan in my lap and hugged him tightly, trying to keep him still. All the while he was screaming, “No, no! Mama, help me! Mama, don’t let them!”

I felt myself getting sick at my stomach. Holding him still when all I really wanted to do was to pull him away from all this was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. “It’s okay, Dylan. Just calm down. It will all be over with soon.” There was no way he could hear me over his own screams, but I continued to repeat the words, just because that’s what a mother does.

“Okay, everyone ready?” The nurse thumped her gloved hand on the vein at the crook of Dylan’s arm. “One, two, three, a little stick.”

“Owww! Owww! That hurts!” Dylan’s screams got louder and the strength of his fight tripled. He thrashed and convulsed like nothing I’d ever seen.

“Got it,” Emily said. Then she pulled loose the elastic tourniquet she’d tied around his arm to help pump up the vein. “Almost over, Dylan.”

I looked down to see red liquid flowing into the syringe. She changed tubes a couple of times, then pulled out the needle. Finally, this trauma was coming to an end.

A few moments later, Dylan had a SpongeBob Band-Aid over a rolled piece of white gauze on his arm. He was still crying, but the screams had stopped now. He looked at me. “Why did you let them do that?”

“I’m sorry, honey. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t have to look hard to find this group. I heard the yelling all the way down the hall.” Another yellow-clad man, this one very tall, had entered the room. “What have we got here, Richard?” He looked toward the other doctor.

Dr. Mabry gestured toward Dylan. “Take a look and see what you think.”

Dylan shrunk against me. “Don’t touch me.”

“It’s okay. I promise not to hurt you. I just want to take a quick look. Okay?”

Dylan held on tight, but the doctor reached forward and pulled Dylan’s hair back from his face to look at the rash. He then looked at the arm sporting the SpongeBob Band-Aid. “Measles. It has to be.” He looked at me then. “Have you been in Oregon recently? Particularly in the Ashland area?”

I shook my head. “No. We live in Ventura, California. I haven’t been anywhere other than there and here.”

“When did the rash start?”

“Thursday night.”

“And when did you fly here?”

“Last Friday.”

“Well, that’s a piece of good news. He wouldn’t have been contagious on the flight, which would have made this an epidemiological nightmare. You haven’t been anywhere else, you say?”

“Nowhere.”

“Hmmm. Well, for now you need to keep him completely isolated from everyone. Stay confined to your property, absolutely nowhere else. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“In the meantime, you need to think about everyone you’ve had contact with in the last week or so.”

“The only places we’ve been this week were church last Sunday—that was the day before the fever started. And on Monday, he was running a low-grade fever and coughing. We sat in the surgical waiting room while my father had knee-replacement surgery. He didn’t get a rash until Thursday night, so we should be good. Right?”

“Waiting room? In this hospital?” Dr. Welton ceased his examination of Dylan’s spots and looked at me.

I nodded.

He turned his attention toward Dr. Mabry. “We need to notify infection control. All medical personnel who were in the facility that day need to have documentation of adequate vaccination or they will have to be put on leave until they can otherwise prove immunity.”

“But that was three days before the rash started,” I said, certain these doctors were overreacting.

“Unfortunately, with measles, the patient is contagious for about four days before the rash starts. That’s usually a day or so before any significant symptoms show up. And, since measles is one of the most infectious diseases around, anyone you get near during that time is exposed. Possibly the people at church on Sunday, definitely the people you came in contact with at the hospital. I’ll get in touch with the health department and let them know what we suspect.”

People put on leave from work? What exactly had we just unleashed?

“Did you go anywhere else besides the waiting area while you were here?” Dr. Welton was focused on me now.

“The cafeteria, the gift shop, and we walked over toward the newborn nursery, but they have that hallway locked off now, so we couldn’t go in there.”

“Well, that’s certainly a good thing. We don’t want babies exposed; that would be a worse-case scenario.”

My mind was wildly flashing from scene to scene of what had occurred over the last week. One scene in particular kept playing through my mind. “Umm, Doctor . . .” My tongue was so dry I could barely speak. “You should probably be aware that at church Sunday we worked in the nursery. My niece and five other babies were in there, but I know my sister has chosen to vaccinate. I’m assuming the rest of them have, too. So they should all be fine, right?”

“When you’re saying babies, what age are we talking about?”

“There weren’t any newborns, but none of them were walking yet. I’d say the range was six months to a year.”

Even the mask could not disguise the panic in Dr. Welton’s eyes. “Sunday would be right on the cusp of whether or not he was contagious. Let’s just pray that he wasn’t yet, because babies usually aren’t given their measles immunizations until between twelve and fifteen months. If Dylan was infectious on Sunday, and he may very well have been, it is highly possible that every single child in that room will come down with the measles.”

“Oh no.” My body went numb. I looked at Dylan. “My niece has a lot of ear infections. I hate the thought of adding what Dylan has been through this week to her problems.”

Dr. Welton said, “If all those babies experience what Dylan has been through, and nothing more, I will be thankful.”

“What do you mean?”

“Measles can be quite serious in infants. Lots more possibilities for complications.”

“Isn’t there something you can do to stop it?”

“Not now.” He shook his head. “If we find out about exposure within seventy-two hours, we can actually give the exposed person the vaccine with pretty good results. We’re considerably past that point. After three days but up until six days after exposure, we can give a shot of immune globulin, which is somewhat protective. What time were you in the nursery?”

“Ten until eleven.”

The doctor looked at his watch. “It’s four o’clock. Past the deadline.” He and Dr. Mabry exchanged a meaningful glance. He looked at me. “At this point, we’re just going to have to wait it out and hope for the best. In the meantime, we need to contact the mothers of all those babies. Best case, they get put on quarantine for what turns out to be no good reason. Worst case . . . well, let’s not even go there.”

As I pulled into my father’s driveway, a feeling of relief—of safety—washed over me. Strange how this place that had felt like such a prison to me only hours ago was suddenly the only refuge I had.

My father was nowhere in sight when Dylan and I came through the back door and into the empty kitchen. I got Dylan settled in the living room, then returned to the kitchen and simply stared at the phone. I did not want to make this call. But if I didn’t do it now, she might hear from the health department first, and that would only make matters worse. I finally removed the black plastic handset from the base and punched in her number.

“Hi, Jana, it’s me.”

“Hey there. I was just about to give you a call. How’s Dylan feelin’ today? I hope he’s better. We all really need to spend some time together.”

“Umm, not so much.”

“Really? Does he have an ear infection or something? I’ve never heard of the flu lasting this long.”

I really did not want to continue this conversation. I did not want to be in this situation at all, but that wasn’t a choice I had anymore. “Well, here’s the thing. We’ve just arrived home from the hospital.”

“Hospital?” Her voice squeaked with concern. “Oh, my goodness, is he all right?”

I dropped into my old chair at the kitchen table. The one I’d sat in beside Jana for so many years while we talked about swings, and boys, and life dreams. And now it had come to this. “We’re not certain yet, but it appears that he potentially has the measles.”

“Mea-sles?” She drew the word out long and slow. “Oh, wow. Oh, Gracie, I am so sorry. So very sorry. That must be so awful for him and you.”

The fact that she didn’t use this time for an I-told-you-so moment was a true testament to my sister’s class and good grace. I wondered if she would still be so gracious when she heard the rest of what I had to say. “I think someone from the health department will be calling you soon.”

“Calling me?” She almost whispered the question. “Why?”

“They are trying to reach everyone he came into contact with during the contagious phase.”

“But we haven’t even seen you since Monday, and we kept a good distance then.”

“I know. It’s just that apparently . . . the contagious phase in measles starts several days before the rash, maybe even before he had a fever. That could make it . . . possibly Sunday.”

“Oh no.” The other end of the line went silent, but I could hear her practically hyperventilating. “Sunday.” She barely mumbled the word. “Surely not.” Again, this was whispered, and I suspected meant more for herself than me. Finally, she said, “So what are we supposed to do?”

“Unfortunately, it seems that they figured out what was wrong with Dylan too late to give Hannah and the other babies any kind of preventative treatment. At this point, the doctor said we just have to wait it out. And, Jana?”

“Yeah?”

“The health department will be calling all the other mothers. I think they’re going to impose some sort of a quarantine; I’m not sure.”

“Oh, my poor Hannah. Those poor darling babies and their mamas.” She paused, absorbing the implications, I supposed. “Some of those women are single mothers. How are they supposed to do a quarantine?”

“I don’t know, Jana. I wish there was something I could say, something to make this better.”

“I’ll tell you what you can say. Tell me you haven’t brought measles to my baby. To all those sweet babies.”

“You know I would never, ever have put her in danger like that. If I’d had any idea at all that Dylan had the measles—or anything at all, for that matter—I would never have let him near her.”

“That’s the choice you made, though, isn’t it?” She waited quietly.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there’s no reason to go there right now, is there? I’ll get off the phone and call the other mothers from church. Better they hear it from me than from some public health official.”

“Maybe I should do it. It will give me a chance to—”

“You know what? I think it’s best that I call them.” Her voice was tight, controlled, completely lacking in the usual southern sweetness. “This is awful. This is terrible. This is . . . this is . . .” She went quiet again.

“I’m so sorry.” There was so much more I wanted to say, but I chose to simply wait her out.

Finally, she whispered, “What have you done?”

I didn’t think I wanted to know the answer. The phone disconnected with a click. Apparently Jana didn’t want to know, either.

“Well, well. Sounds like we’ve got ourselves a bit of a mess here, doesn’t it?” Dad had come into the room behind me while I was talking.

“You heard?”

“I heard enough.” He let go of his walker and shuffled forward to grasp the kitchen counter. “I wonder how many people he exposed?”

“We haven’t really been anywhere other than church and the waiting room at the hospital. Thankfully, there weren’t any small children in the waiting room that day. Problem is, all those kids at church were too young to have been immunized, and now they’re talking putting employees on leave from the hospital if they can’t prove immunity.”

“Oh boy.” He shuffled over to his kitchen chair and lowered himself in. “What about when you went to the doctor’s office this morning?”

“I hadn’t even thought of that.” I picked up the phone and called the number they’d given me for the health department. “This is Grace Graham. It just occurred to me that we went to the walk-in clinic this morning. The doctor there thought it was just a virus, so we didn’t take any precautions.”

“Uh-oh.” The man whistled. “Was the waiting room full, do you remember?”

“No. There was just one other lady. She was older, very nice—let us go in front of her.” I pictured her kind face, remembered the way she’d put us ahead of her own convenience. “She should be all right, right? She was probably close to sixty, so she would have been vaccinated, right?”

“Most likely. The problem with measles is that the droplets remain in the air for a couple of hours. So if someone walked into the waiting room an hour behind you, there is still a possibility the disease could have spread.”

“Oh.” Just when I’d thought it wasn’t possible for me to feel worse, I did. It was then that I truly began to wonder just how many people my choices were going to affect.